Leadership in Action

 

 

I had the experience of seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform with a string quartet made up of young musicians, most of whom have just graduated from music school. He literally plays ‘second fiddle’ in a piece for a string quartet with two cellos. Yo-Yo plays the second cello part allowing the young musician to take the lead cello.

This performance takes place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, not in the regular auditorium, but in the much more intimate space of the Rembrandt room (Before the thefts). It’s a fund raiser for Young Audiences of Mass, where I am the artistic director. It’s the end of a gala evening and this private performance is only for the YA staff and large donors.

The piece is maybe 10 minutes long. There are only about 30 people gathered around the musicians, standing with our wine glasses in hand - and it is sublime, magical, transcendent. Looking around the audience I see many folk with tears in their eyes. I am wiping them out of my own.

After the performance I ask one of the musicians what it was like playing with such a master of their art. She said, “I may as well hang up my violin right now for I have never played so beautifully in my life and I doubt I will ever reach this height again.”

Yo-Yo Ma’s Presence lifted everyone else in the group to his level of mastery. Not only his being Present in the room; his ability to Reach Out to, and connect with, his ‘team;’ his Expressiveness in playing; and the grounded confidence of Self-Knowing; his totality as a human being and master of his art. AND he did it not by shining the light on himself as ‘The Leader,’ but by putting himself in the background.

This experience was a clear demonstration of several of my favorite quotes on leadership:
HBS: Leadership is how you make other people feel by your presence (and not just ‘feel’ but how you change the quality of their performance)
Lao Tzu: A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, “We did it ourselves.”
Simon Sinek’s book: “Leaders Eat Last”

Being Present and problem solving

 Being Present and problem solving

One of my favorite themes in coaching and corporate trainings is the link between being Present (with its’ attendant aspects of the pause and the breath) and problem solving. Problems can only ever be solved in the present moment. And, they are always solved in the present moment. That may sound like the same thing but there is a significant difference. The first statement assumes the usual attitude that there is the present moment and then there is everything else (Past and future). It assumes “Time.” The second statement makes the point that it is always the present moment, that there is nothing else, and so this is the time to address the issue. (Love that line, “There’s no time like the present!” - literally)

I have two favorite stories to emphasize the connection between being present and problem solving. The first is short, a Lawrence Olivier story, and the second about the ancient tale of Beowulf, much more complex and detailed (Later.)

Lawrence Olivier, (Sir Larry) was arguably the world’s greatest Shakespearean actor of the 20th century. Two things about sir Larry are relevant to this story; 1) He hated to memorize lines. If he didn’t need to memorize a line, such as reading a letter on stage, he wouldn’t. He would have the letter written out. Most actors would have the lines committed to memory. 2) He was a practical joker and loved to see if he could get actors to break character in the middle of a play. Understandably sharing the stage with Olivier kept other actors on their toes.

What happens in this one particular performance is that the other actors decide turn about is fair play and they decide to play a practical joke on Sir Larry. They convince the actor who delivers the letter to Larry to switch it out for a blank piece of paper. So, it’s the middle of a battle scene. Olivier, the commander, is alone on stage with smoke pouring in from stage left and right, sound effects of cannon firing, swords clashing, men shouting and dying. A messenger rushes on stage towards Olivier. “Letter from the front my lord!”
Olivier snatches the letter, opens it and……… it’s blank.   …….. Looooong pause (and probably, hopefully, some deep breaths……..

Olivier: “My eyes are too weak with the smoke of battle…… you read it!  (Hands letter to messenger)

Now, Olivier could have spent his time (as many of us would in such a pressurized situation) not being present. “This is not what’s supposed to be happening! This letter is not supposed to be blank, it’s not the one I am supposed to have. Why Isn’t my letter here? What happened? Blah blah blah, past, past, past.” Instead, Olivier becomes very present with what IS (rather than on what is NOT) actually going on: blank letter, where do I go from here?. His willingness to ‘rest’ in the reality of the present with its powerful energy of ‘Presence,’ ‘IS-ness,’ ‘potentiality’ and ‘possibility’ leads to the solution.

I often wonder what the messenger did in that situation. The story doesn’t say. I would hope that if I were them I would also take a breath, pause, sink into the present and….

Messenger: “Sorry my lord, I never learned how to read.”

Gathering Check-ins

​What do I want to talk about (LinkedIn asks when I initiate a post)? Check-ins at group meetings! I have a pet peeve about checkins - They go on too long. I am a great fan of check-ins, love them for how they connect people on a personal and emotional level - and they always seem to go off the rails in terms of setting time limits per-person. Especially checkins as part of a colleague gathering where people go deeply personal. The moderator never fails to set a time limit of 1-2 minutes (because, after all, there is more to the agenda), and participants never fail to double or treble that amount of time.

I have been reading Priya Parker’s book, “The Art of Gathering” and her advice has been at the top of my mind during recent meetings. One of her bits of advice is to not be a “Chill Host” (or moderator) (even at the risk of alienating some participants). Keep control of your gathering, keep it focused on its purpose, or someone else (or someones) will hijack it. To Priya, the gathering itself, and its success, is more important than any one person in it.

People do need time to connect with their peers and when someone is in the middle of a deeply personal sharing, it feels unkind (and uncomfortable as moderator) to cut them off. Yes and…. Priya’s main, and compelling, point is that it is more unkind (and disrespectful) to everyone else, to the other participants who are awaiting their turn. If there is a limited amount of time set for the exercise some people may not get to share, or their time will be curtailed by the people who hogged the ‘mic.’

This happened in a recent Zoom gathering of colleagues. The gathering’s purpose was to allow us to connect with colleagues we haven’t seen in a while. It was scheduled for an hour and the check in was the entire gathering. People took twice as much (and more) time as was allowed and our moderator (understandably) did not want to cut anyone off.  To me it became an example of individuals being more important than the group and therefore the gathering not serving its people.

The gathering did not feel cohesive, people’s attention wandered, several people had to leave when the hour was up, and ultimately the gathering, for that reason, did not feel successful. 

Face it, not everything that everyone shares is interesting or compelling to everyone; so to go on and on sucks the life out of the gathering. Everybody can deal with 1-2 minutes of sharing. People will be forced not to ramble, to choose the most important (to them) points to make, and to practice that most wonderful leadership quality - succinctness.

It is not my intention to criticize my colleagues because I have run my share of runaway gatherings.  It’s just that after reading Priya’s book, I have, going forward, a passionate and clear interest in, as well as respect, excitement and the desire for, conducting successful gatherings.

#gatherings #Priyaparker #meetings #leadership #connections